Femto cells—building-based wireless access points interfaced with a wired broadband network—are generally deployed to improve indoor wireless coverage, and to offload a mobility radio access network (RAN) operated by a wireless service provider. Improved indoor coverage includes stronger signal and improved reception (e.g., voice or data), ease of session or call initiation, and session or call retention as well. Offloading a RAN reduces operational and transport costs for the service provider since a lesser number of end users utilizes over-the-air radio resources (e.g., radio frequency channels), which are typically limited.
Coverage of a femto cell, or femto access point (AP), is generally intended to be confined within the bounds of an indoor compound (e.g., a residential or commercial building) in order to mitigate interference among mobile stations covered by a macro cell and terminals covered by the femto AP. Additionally, confined coverage can reduce interference among terminals serviced by disparate, neighboring femto cells as well. Femto cells typically operate in licensed portions of the electromagnetic spectrum, and generally offer plug-and-play installation; e.g., automatic configuration of femto AP subsequent to femto cell subscriber registration with a service provider. Coverage improvements via femto cells can also mitigate customer attrition as long as a favorable subscriber perception regarding voice coverage and other data services with substantive delay sensitivity is attained. In addition, a richer variety of wireless voice and data services can be offered to customers via a femto cell since such service offerings do not rely primarily on mobility RAN resources.
Substantial exploitation of the foregoing efficiencies provided by femto cells depends at least in part on adequate performance or service of a femto cell network, which can be achieved or exceeded through monitoring technical and commercial aspects of operation of the femto cell network. In contrast to standard telecommunication networks designed and deployed for outdoors macro coverage, like a Universal Mobile Telecommunication System macro network or a Global System for Mobile Communication macro network, in which various performance metrics associated with voice quality and data session quality, such as block error rate, packet loss rate, lost calls, etc., can be monitored for up 103-105 base stations per network management unit (e.g., a radio network controller), in a femto coverage deployment a substantially larger number of access points is to be monitored. Thus, increasing the complexity of assessing quality of voice calls, e.g., via BLER, and quality of data sessions. Aspects of monitoring a femto cell network such as assessing voice calls and data session quality, measurement(s) aggregation, data storage, report generation, etc., can lead to cumbersome (e.g., complicated performance rules) and expensive implementations which can hinder achieving or exceeding adequate operation quality.